weekend in Les Cayes

I spent the weekend visiting my friend K in Les Cayes - Haiti's third largest city located on the south coast about 4 hours drive from Port-au-Prince. I traveled with K's godson Garysson - a very cute six-year old boy. Several years ago (when G was 3) K, a pediatric nurse, accompanied G to the DR when he underwent 2 months of radiation therapy for eye cancer. The treatment was successful but G lost his eye. K has been trying to get him a prosthetic and wanted him to come to Les Cayes especially to see a doctor at the Brenda Hospital - a specialty clinic with ophthalmologists and ENT docs. Unfortunately the news from them was not what we hoped. It sounds like he is going to require reconstructive plastic surgery to create an eye socket before he can successfully receive a prosthetic eye. They didn't know of anyone practicing in Haiti with the training and tools needed for the surgery - which means another long wait while K tries to find a specialist, procure a visa and funds for surgery in the DR or Cuba. Despite the disappointment, it was such a joy to watch G splash in the ocean, ride in a speed boat and clean off huge plates of food- all of which are a pretty big departure from his day-to-day life in the slum community where he lives with his parents and two older siblings in Port-au-Prince.

This was my second trip to Okay (the Kreyol name) and I'm making an early New Year's resolution to try to get back at least one weekend per month next quarter. It's a lovely quiet town with walkable streets and easy access to some even lovelier beaches - such a contrast to Port-au-Prince in most every way. Below is the slide show I pulled together of photos from the weekend trip taken with my new "research tool"- a digital SLR camera.